Smilin' Faces
by joe stakem
Summary: Part of an anthology of Gotham stories, not focusing on major characters, just Gotham citizens.


Smilin' Faces Joe Stakem 

"I'm in the woods, and she's running, and I'm chasing her…." He said, laying on the Corinthian leather couch, the man in the glasses not far from him, notepad in hand. "Go on, Joe." The man says. Joe, the man on the couch, swallows hard, he continues. "She's running, and I'm behind her, I'm trying to catch up, but I'm out of breath, and it's foggy, and I'm afraid I'll lose her in the fog, but I can't keep up…she runs further ahead and she disappears into the mist. I'm afraid, my heart is racing." Joe has his eyes closed, he's not in a therapist's office at the moment, he's off in another place, a dream, a nightmare, a two year nightmare that began with him finding her in the bathroom of their apartment, the smile that used to excite and beguile him, now wakes him up drenched in a cold sweat, when he can manage to sleep. "What happens after you lose her?" The therapist asks, not bothering to scribble anything on his pad, he's heard this many times before. "I stop and take a breath, my lungs are burning, I can barely see, I think I've lost her, and I don't know where I am myself, and I'm filled with dread…then I hear her. She's laughing, I can hear it louder and louder as I run to the sound of her. I'm running fast now, I was varsity track in college, even in dreams I'm pretty swift…" A slight smirk appears on his face, but quickly fades, sweat begins to bead on his forehead. "…I make it to this clearing, and it's cold there. It's freezing, I run straight into the middle, but I don't see her, I'm afraid again, terrified. Then I hear the laughing again, but it's not hers. It's high pitched, almost like a cackling, but it's not coming from a woman, it's a man laughing. I whip around, and he is behind me, with my wife, with Jeannie, she's in his arms, he's carrying her, she's limp, like a doll, she's wearing the white dress from our anniversary, she's smiling at me, her lipstick is smeared and her hair's a mess…" The therapist picks up on the tone of Joe's voice, he's distressed, this is the point where begins to hyperventilate. "Would you like to stop now?" He asks. "No. I can finish." Joe's breathing becomes heavy now, he's sweating even more. "He stops laughing, but he doesn't stop smiling, mouth wide open, not making a sound, there's just this macabre smile on his face, it's horrifying. He sets Jeannie down, on the ground, and he leans over her, and kisses her cheek, I'm furious, I charge at him, but he runs off before I get to him, he vanishes, and it's just me and her now. She-- she props herself up and looks me in the eye, and she starts laughing again, and she gets up and starts running, I chase after her, I'm screaming her name at the top of my lungs. We leave the clearing now, and we get to-- we get to the edge of this cliff, and she stops and looks back at me, she's just five feet from the edge, and she's looking at me. Her eyes are so hollow, I tell her "Stop, for the love of god stop this! I love you, now just come back here, where it's safe." I'm pretty sure I'm crying, but she's got this smile on her face, just like his, I can't understand it. She looks to the cliff, and then back at me. And she says, she says in this other voice, this insane clown-like tone, "We're never safe, Joe…" And she just….jumps. I run to the cliff and look over, and she's falling, and the whole way down…I hear her laughing. I. Hear. Her. Laughing." A lone tear falls from Joe's closed eye. "I think this is a good place to stop." The therapist says, quickly examining the clock. Joe's eyes pop open, and he sits up. He wipes the sweat from his brow, and rubs his eyes, he's not in the nightmare anymore, he's back in reality, though for him, for the last two years, there has not been a difference…

It rained during Joe's session. Puddles lined the streets and pooled at the cracks in the sidewalk. It was rapidly becoming winter in Gotham. The heat and humidity of the summer was replaced by a chilled breeze, stirring up dead leaves and newspapers and whatever else had littered the streets. Joe pulled up the collar on his jacket, and braced himself against the wind. He didn't need to check his watch to know that is was 7 o'clock, therapy was over, and his dreams of purple-suited clowns would have to wait, at least until later on that night. The days were growing shorter, darkness came early. Joe took his usual route to the diner a few blocks from the office, a routine he'd come to establish in the two years he had been going to therapy. He kept his head down, not looking up, even to look forward, a habit practiced by many in the city, to avoid looking up and witnessing a crime of some sort, for worse than being the victim of malice in Gotham, is bearing witness to it. Joe moved to Gotham in his early twenties from a small town in Kansas, not long after, he met his wife Jeanne while selling insurance. The life insurance industry was and still is a booming enterprise in Gotham, next to psychiatry and grief counseling. Death and loss are something the citizens of Gotham have come to know all too well, coupled with experiencing hallucinations, the most common of which being an apparition of a giant bat-like creature, flying across the night sky. The bells of the diner clinked as Joe entered, he'd come for his usual bowl of chili and three cups of black coffee. He sat in his usual booth and smoked his usual cigarette. Joe hadn't always smoked, and it wasn't the grief that drove him to it. He figured that doing certain things like smoking helped him to blend in. He thought that maybe by looking like everyone else he wouldn't be exposing his real self. He lamented what he had become. He was less the mild mannered, cottage cheese, bland person he had been before, and more of a burning thing. A wild man, a jackal. He was consumed with rage and vengeance, with each passing day, with each tear shed he let go of sadness and confusion, and embraced his anger. Someone had come into his home, his domain, and taken the thing he loved, he no longer had anything tying him to this world, he was free to burn, and he had one smiling psychopath in particular to thank for that…


End file.
